In still quite another way many Moslims who found their freedom of thought or action impeded by the prevailing law and doctrine, have returned to the origin of their religion. Too much attached to the traditions of their faith, deliberately to disregard these impediments, they tried to find in the Qorân and Tradition arguments in favour of what was dictated to them by Reason; and they found those arguments as easily as former generations had found the bases on which to erect their casuistry, their dogma, and their mysticism. This implied an interpretation of the oldest sources independent from the catholic development of Islâm, and in contradiction with the general opinion of the canonists, according to whom, since the fourth or fifth century of the Hijrah, no one is qualified for such free research. A certain degree of independence of mind, together with a strong attachment to their spiritual past, has given rise in the Moslim world to this sort of liberal protestantism, which in our age has many adherents among the Mohammedans who have come in contact with modern civilization.
That the partisans of all these different conceptions could remain together as the children of one spiritual family, is largely owing to the elastic character of Ijmâʿ, the importance of which is to some extent acknowledged by Catholics and Protestants, by moderns and conservatives. It has never been contested that the community,
